Dodgers Slowed Down by Hampton

What a wide range of emotions Colorado pitcher Mike Hampton must have felt on the Dodger Stadium mound Monday night.

There was the frustration of a miserable season--Hampton began Monday’s game with a 3-8 record and 7.07 earned-run average--that had the left-hander, in the second year of an eight-year, $121-million contract, on the verge of a demotion to the bullpen.

And there was the profound grief from the loss of St. Louis pitcher Darryl Kile, his friend and former Houston Astro teammate whose death Saturday so devastated Hampton that he couldn’t even talk about it.

It was a one-two punch that could have floored many players, but Hampton found the strength to muster up one of his best games of the season, leading the Rockies to a 4-1 victory before a crowd of 34,641 and ending the Dodger win streak at five.

Hampton gave up one run and five hits in six innings, striking out two and walking one, and he also homered off Dodger starter Kazuhisa Ishii in the second inning.

“Before every game I pitch I say a prayer,� said Hampton, who will fly with teammate Larry Walker to St. Louis for Kile’s memorial service Wednesday. “I said a prayer for his family, [his wife] Flynn and the kids. Just for them to be strong and get through this somehow.

“It’s going to take a while, but they’re going to find a way to get through this. She’s got a job to tell her kids every day how much their daddy loved them, especially the youngest one. The biggest thing I think about is Ryker, the 10-month old. He never had a chance to know his daddy.�

Though Kile was “in my thoughts and my prayers and in my heart,� Hampton knew he had a job to do Monday night.

“I tried to get back to business, get back to pitching and playing a game that I loved and he loved,� Hampton said. “He’s inside. But tonight was me going out and doing my best.�

Hampton’s only blemish was Shawn Green’s home run in the first, which hardly came as a shock.

Green has a lifetime .684 average with three homers and 11 runs batted in against Hampton.

But Hampton did retire Green on a one-hopper to the mound in the fourth inning, and he got Green to bounce into a 4-6-3 double play to end the sixth.

The Dodgers threatened in the ninth off closer Jose Jimenez, putting runners on first and second with one out, but Eric Karros, who was batting .328 with runners in scoring position, bounced into a game-ending 6-3 double play.

That wasn’t the Dodgers’ only potential loss. Catcher Paul Lo Duca, who is batting .306 with 18 doubles and 31 RBIs, suffered a mild strain of his left groin running out a grounder in the first inning, left the game in the fifth and was listed as day to day.

“We’ll have more information [today], but right now it doesn’t appear that serious,� Manager Jim Tracy said.

“He felt a cramping between his stomach muscle and groin. Rather than push him, we pulled the plug on it.�

Ishii (11-3) survived a rocky start, when he gave up three runs and five hits and walked three in the first two innings, leaving the bases loaded twice.

Continuing his pattern of early trouble, followed by dominance, Ishii blanked Colorado on two hits over the next five innings.

“We’ve tried everything,� Tracy said, when asked what the Dodgers could do to improve Ishii’s early-inning performance.

“Maybe the next step is to have him pitch a few innings before the game. Let’s get him on one of those half-fields like we have in spring training.�

Colorado’s first-inning rally, which was aided by shortstop Cesar Izturis’ error, included RBI singles by Todd Zeile and Juan Uribe, the Rockies’ shortstop who also made two outstanding plays in the hole to rob Izturis of hits in the sixth and ninth.

Green’s homer in the bottom of the first pulled the Dodgers within 2-1 and gave him 23 homers and 59 RBIs, with 20 of those homers coming in his last 31 games. Green is third in the National League in homers behind Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds and third in RBIs behind Lance Berkman and Colorado’s Todd Helton, but few seem to have noticed.

Green is 14th among NL outfielders in All-Star voting, and one spot ahead of Green in the balloting is Armando Rios, a part-time Pittsburgh outfielder who is batting .257 with no homers and nine RBIs.